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Alright…who here likes taking their car to the shop for maintenance? Anyone…anyone…Bueller…Bueller. We me neither, so I’m passing on some of Franco’s favorite tips for saving $$$ on car maintenance.

DIY

Who doesn’t want to lose some weight (even those that don’t need to will still complain about how “fat” they are)? Some need to more than others, and I was definitely in the “some” category at the beginning of this year. As motivation, I decided to join a weight loss challenge with 18 other people where the winner would be determined by the % of total body weight lost. Long story short, I ended up dropping close to 18% of my body weight in 10 weeks and took home some extra dough for first place. Since then, I’ve had some people ask for my secret, which is what prompted this post. 

I came across two articles that were both enlightening, one of which was rather entertaining if you don’t mind a good dose of crude humor and sarcasm (I’ll let you determine which is the entertainingly sarcastic/crude piece based on the published magazine listed below). Both pieces are full blown articles that take some time to read but are well worth the investment. Here is a snippet from each to see if the writing style suits your fancy with a link to the full blown article:

The Quiet Coup - The Atlantic

The second scenario begins more bleakly, and might end that way too. But it does provide at least some hope that we’ll be shaken out of our torpor. It goes like this: the global economy continues to deteriorate, the banking system in east-central Europe collapses, and—because eastern Europe’s banks are mostly owned by western European banks—justifiable fears of government insolvency spread throughout the Continent. Creditors take further hits and confidence falls further. The Asian economies that export manufactured goods are devastated, and the commodity producers in Latin America and Africa are not much better off. A dramatic worsening of the global environment forces the U.S. economy, already staggering, down onto both knees. The baseline growth rates used in the administration’s current budget are increasingly seen as unrealistic, and the rosy “stress scenario” that the U.S. Treasury is currently using to evaluate banks’ balance sheets becomes a source of great embarrassment.
 

The Big Takeover - Rolling Stone

There are plenty of people who have noticed, in recent years, that when they lost their homes to foreclosure or were forced into bankruptcy because of crippling credit-card debt, no one in the government was there to rescue them. But when Goldman Sachs (a company whose average employee still made more than $350,000 last year, even in the midst of a depression) was suddenly faced with the possibility of losing money on the unregulated insurance deals it bought for its insane housing bets, the government was there in an instant to patch the hole. That’s the essence of the bailout: rich bankers bailing out rich bankers, using the taxpayers’ credit card.

Ciao,
Franco

Not sure if this is a national promotion, but I just got a coupon handed to me at my local Albertsons grocery store (which is owned by SuperValu) stating that if you buy a $250 gift card you can get $20 free or a $300 gift card to get $30 free. As I mentioned last year, this is a tremendous deal! Groceries are something we all are going to spend money on over the next year whether we like it or not, so why not save 10% while you’re at it. Where else can you guarentee a 10% return on your money?

I can’t seem to find any details about this promotion online, but the bottom of the coupon states that it is valid “now through tax day” and to “see customer service for details.”

Ciao,
Franco

As a rebuttal to last week’s rant by Rick Santelli, check out Jon Stewart’s counterpoint….good stuff!

It’s tax time so you know what that means…time to make the donuts (or pay the piper). For all you frugal followers who don’t like the idea of paying someone money to figure out how much money you should be paying away to Uncle Sam, might I recommended a totally free, online option for filing your federal tax return. Tax Act offers free federal filing for everyone (no restrictions on income). I’m just starting the process of filing my taxes so I can’t vouch for the service yet, but my first impression is that Tax Act is up to par with other programs like Turbo Tax, Tax Cut, and H&R Block Online. 

If anyone has used this program or would like to recommened another service, please share it by commenting below.

Ciao,
Franco

Two politically oriented posts within a week…don’t look now but Franco is becoming a pundit.

Ciao,
Franco

During these emotionally trying times, it is good to keep things in perspective and laugh every once in a while.

Ciao,
Franco

As anyone who has been monitoring this blog will have noticed, my posting has dropped off a cliff lately. I’m on a bit of a hiatus for the next couple months as I ramp up for the CFA exam. I will try to make some occasional posts as I stumble across anything of interest.

Along those lines, check out Rick Santelli’s recent rant on the new “stimulus plan” to socialize mortgages. As a rule, I tend not to be very political as politics is 99% hot air and 1% follow through, but I would have to agree with Santelli’s beef on this one.

Ciao,
Franco

My favorite meal at my work cafeteria is the mid-week taco salad special. Utilizing a well thought out strategy, this tasty treat can be one of the best deals in town.

The cafeteria at work operates on a unique system known as “lunch lady arithmetic.” Unlike regular arithmetic (or math if you will), lunch lady arithmetic varies from day to day. The price of any given item in the cafeteria is determined by an unknown baseline value (very few prices are actually posted) plus or minus some variation from the mean. The variation is largely driven by the type of item and the lady that is ringing you up. Prepared food like eggs and oatmeal have a much wider distribution than packaged items like chips or milk. So one day you go in and pay $2.44 for some scrambled eggs and an English muffin while the next day it may ring up at $3.21 or potentially something with a one handle if you’re lucky. This kind of risk/reward makes the simple act of eating at the cafeteria an exciting adventure.